​Facebook Ads vs Google Adwords – the Facebook Targeting Advantage

Facebook and Google are the two biggest internet giants, and each has its own advertising model. Which is best? The answer may surprise you. Many companies wonder whether they should use Google Adwords or Facebook Ads. As you will read in this article, we believe Facebook targeting holds certain advantages.

At first glance, they look pretty similar:PPC advertising can be cheap if you know the tips and techniques for using it. With Google Adwords you can have highly-targeted, low cost, high conversion campaigns.

You have the same opportunity with Facebook ads. For example, you can get 1,000 Facebook fans for your page only for $20 , or you can build your list driving traffic from Facebook ads and increase revenue. But there are key differences you need to know about. Let’s take a closer look at the two systems.

2 Different Targeting Systems

On Facebook, you can choose the audience for your ads by using filters, which allow you to target your audience in three ways: by interests, demography and geography. So your ads reach the right audience and will be seen only by users you have profiled.

Google Adwords, on the other hand, may trigger ads based on user preferences, but Google doesn’t know people like Facebook does. It can’t see what users “Like” or follow, nor can it see data from their personal profile. Relevant ads are triggered primarily by search terms. So when a term like “business courses” is typed into Google, you see ads ads related to… business courses. On the Display Network, ads are shown on pages with related content. Google understands what the page is about and matches ads accordingly. As with Adwords, you have to bid on keywords, and you have no control over who is going to see your ad. Furthermore, the ad might not be an exact match to the website.

Ad Creation Process

The Facebook ads creation process is different from AdWords. You target people’s interests rather than their search phrases. You’re targeting people based more on who they are than the information they’re looking for right now. As you can see from this graph, Facebook tends to show ads based on a user’s likes, while Adwords focuses on keywords. The demographic data on users may also be more complete, so targeting can be easier on Facebook.But the thing that stands out most is the average cost: Facebook ads, on average, are a third of the cost of Google Adwords.

Brand Building

While both advertising platforms offer the ability for companies to build brand equity, they do it in completely different ways.

With AdWords, a click takes you to a company’s landing page, where branding, design and sales copy send a strong signal to the user. If there are tons of ads and hyped headlines, they may question the trustworthiness of the company and immediately click off the site. Google takes note of this, and may lower the rank of the website if too many people bounce quickly.

Facebook advertising allows for leveraging of word-of-mouth and social proof, which are powerful tools in advertising. When people see that a friend already likes a product, trust barriers can be broken down much more quickly than with advertising alone. With Facebook ads, users see the ads on a regular basis. So, over the course of several interactions, they get to see what that brand is about before deciding to click through to their website or Facebook page. This builds a level of comfort and relieves some of the pressure for landing pages and websites to immediately perform.

Demographic & Keyword Targeting

Google AdWords and other services allow for demographic and keyword targeting. But with Facebook, you can target keywords and demographic locations with far more precision. How? User profiles include their location. When you use geo-targeting, your ads only appear to people whose profiles contain your targeted location and/or location. Google AdWords doesn’t know as much about your users’ locations or what keywords they are most interested in. They only know what the user is searching for right now. As a result, the probability of your ads reaching the right audience is much lower.

That said, Facebook advertising often has higher clickthrough rates and conversions than Google Adwords.

The Big Difference

Adwords Weaknesses:Google Adwords relies purely on keywords as a targeting method when deciding who to show your ad to. Keywords can be a tricky business, especially if you’re new to the concept. With Adwords, this disadvantage of being dictated by keywords (a double edged sword, as the keywords are both a strength and a weakness) means that if users aren’t searching for your product, they’re unlikely to see it. While this isn’t bad if they know what they’re looking for, certain products just don’t get researched before purchasing. Razors or shaving cream, for example. Except for expensive shaving kits, most users don’t think to search for razors online to research or make online purchases for the company directly; they swing by and grab one from a supermarket or a drug store. If you’re looking to get your brand exposure and to show an audience a product that they don’t know they want or need, Adwords may not be the best approach for you.

Facebook Strengths:Remember those certain products and services that people don’t realize they need or want to try, like the razors or shaving cream? Facebook Ads is a great way to showcase your product to a relevant audience, even if they didn’t know they wanted or needed it. Dollar Shave had great success with their Facebook Ads campaigns. This is a great example of a perfect campaign for Facebook Ads. A lot of people may not search for “free genetic testing” or know even about genetic testing. This ad targeted users in a local area who might be interested. Perfect for discovery of items that people don’t search for. Facebook is fantastic for exposure for your brand and product. Facebook Ads are also often slightly more eye-catching, with images that can catch a user’s interest and attention. While some Google ads have an image, largely off-site ads, Facebook ads has the advantage of reliable imagery to help attract a user.Facebook also offers the benefit of user engagement. Users may flock to a Facebook Page as well as potentially buying or signing up for an opt-in list, giving a business free marketing opportunities to those users via their Page and posts in the future. You can get user engagement, build up excitement, and build a rapport with followers as the ad happens on a social media platform.

Conclusion

Google Adwords works best when someone is in research mode. When a person searches for a keyword on Google, the top results will be advertisements related to the person’s search. So you only reach searchers.

However Facebook Ads are about making people talk about your business. It focuses on word-of-mouth marketing. Facebook Ads can not only help you sell, they can also help you build an interactive relationship with your customer.

Hands down - Facebook comes out on top!

Social Media Marketing:What has changed on the Internet? In short, 3 years ago the Internet was completely different....search results relied on keywords, back-links, and much more. Now Google follows us as content authors and how we are shared across the Internet. If you are NOT being shared you will not only have poor results in Facebook, which is a search engine of it's own, you will rank low in Google and YouTube as well. You NEED subscribers, shares, likes, etc. Community management will deplete all of your resources. Each social network you manage will cost you exponentially more time, money and energy. And contrary to popular belief, social media is not free. It takes tremendous resources to do it properly, and has an enormous opportunity cost. So prioritize starting with the largest network there is, Facebook, and let us handle the work.

Facebook Facts/Tips:

Design - Facebook does not allow you in it's default form to control your fan pages. There are many different Facebook apps for promotion but they are complex, time consuming, sometimes expensive, difficult to maintain and quite honestly don't get the job done in the end. Also when it comes to laying out your Facebook Fan Page graphics there are very important things you HAVE to do to remain within Facebook's policies. If you don't follow these rules, you will have varying results and may even get blocked by posting the wrong information on your graphics. As part of our service, we take care of all this for you.

Comments/Feedback - Customers don’t want to connect with faceless corporations. They want to connect with real humans. But a lot of companies still don’t understand this. No one will like, trust or respect your company in the long run if they can’t get straight, honest feedback in a timely manner. You MUST reply to all comments! Period. If not you are running your contacts off in another direction...be on top of your social interaction 100%. Tip: Turn all of your notification options ON!

Facebook Statistics (2014):

Facebook is the 2nd most visited website in the world behind Google (Youtube 3rd, Twitter is ranked 7th, Linked In 12th, Pinterest 26th, and Instagram 30th)

Total number of monthly active Facebook users: 1,310,000,000

Total number of mobile Facebook users: 945,000,000

Total number of daily users: 757,000,000

The average Facebook user spends 40 minutes a day on the platform

Percent of 18-34 year olds who check Facebook when they wake up: 48 %

Percent of 18-34 year olds who check Facebook before they get out of bed: 28%

Average number of friends per Facebook user: 130

Every serious business HAS to be on their "A" game when it comes to social media marketing and Facebook is the king. Don't let your competition grab your valuable customers. Contact us today!